


Case 147: Out On A Limb (1897)

by Cerdic519



Series: Elementary 221B [188]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Supernatural
Genre: 221B Baker Street, Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Anglo-Saxon, Deception, Destiel - Freeform, F/M, Gay Sex, Historical, Johnlock - Freeform, London, M/M, Omens & Portents, Trains, Untold Cases of Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-15 00:21:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17518661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerdic519/pseuds/Cerdic519
Summary: ֍ After a warning of approaching danger, Sherlock and John travel to a small English town in the middle of nowhere where they are faced with one of the coldest of cold cases.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BeeCipher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeeCipher/gifts).



_[Narration by Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Esquire]_

John often remarked that the ill-starred Hawke/Buckingham family aside, how rare it was for people whom we had helped before to reappear in our lives which, given the nature of my work, was I suppose understandable. This case however began with a connection from one such person, and most unusually it was something that I decided to keep from John. And I hardly kept anything from him.

He would doubtless be agreeing with that statement and smirking at the unintentional _double entendre_ , the horny bastard!

֍

The aforementioned connection also tied into the recent case concerning my sister-in-law Rachael and Mr. Blaze Trevelyan, and in particular her son Tantalus. A gentleman in the making, he had called round at Baker Street not long after Mother had decided how the problems arising from Pinner would be Resolved and he presumably wished to thank me again for my efforts. Or so I first thought.

“It is something else that brings me here today”, he said, “and perhaps it is fortunate that the doctor is out.”

John was away treating a rich hypochondriac out in Dagenham, who would almost certainly be suffering from little more than a sore throat and an overactive imagination. But she was also a good payer, unlike some of his few remaining clients. Money may or may not buy happiness but, I often observed, it rarely seemed to buy the ability to pay one's debts on time sometimes to the point where I had to use some of my own contacts to 'prompt' those who were slow to pay what they owed.

“We had a school trip yesterday down to the Houses of Parliament”, the boy said. “We even had a short talk from one of them; I think he could have even given my so-called father lessons in how to bore people rigid!”

I smiled at the all too accurate description of Mycroft, who had been in the newspapers only the other day when the new cottage that he had purchased down in Surrey had been destroyed in a gas explosion. Most curiously the cottages either side of it in its row had been undamaged, so someone up there clearly loathed my brother as much as John and I did.

“We had lunch while we were there and there was also a school down from Gloucestershire, Stow I think”, the boy said. “One of them came up to me and asked if I was Master Tantalus Holmes.”

I was immediately wary. 

“What did he want?” I asked.

“He said that if I was, his mother had a message for, and he actually said this, 'a scruffy not-relative of mine'. It was really odd; he said she had wanted him to pass on these words: 'prepare for the worst when you go out on a limb'. To be honest I wondered if he was all right in the head but he got called away just then and we all had to leave soon after.”

“You did not get the other boy's name?” I asked.

“He did not mention it”, Tantalus said. “But he mentioned his mother by her first name which I thought unusual, at least to a stranger. He called her 'Pamela'.”

My heart sank. Mrs. Cynric Musgrave! The seer who we had met nearly two decades back in one of our early cases had, I knew, been right far too often in her predictions. And with all the happiness that I had been feeling with John lately, especially his loving care after Ranulph's attack, I had come to empathize with his oft-expressed opinion that if good things did happen then bad ones were in line with a number ready to step up. What was lying in wait for us this time, and where the hell were our guardian angels?

I was by this time much more careful about which cases I chose to take on. I was actually being offered more than at any time in my career thus far but I eschewed any where I felt there was any real danger involved, as I wished for my current happiness – my current ecstasy if truth be told – to last as long as possible.

֍

I was compelled to tell my beloved a small lie when I claimed that family matters were once more a problem, as I knew he would not press me over that. It was not a complete fabrication; John was much as if not more than my blood family. My sole consolation was that the message had only been to prepare, not that disaster would befall one or both of us. Though then again Mrs. Musgrave could hardly entrust such a direct message to her young son.

I had managed to put the matter out of my head for a while by the most effective expedient of telling John last night that he do whatever he wanted with me. Certain parts of my body might not be on speaking terms with me as a result, but I fully understood the oft-expressed oxymoron about a 'glorious ache', even if I had borrowed one of John's cushions this morning.

All right, two. I had not needed them but his pleased smirk had been worth it.

It was not long after breakfast when we had a caller. A maid brought up his card.

“'The Reverend Hugh Britten'”, I read. “'The Vicarage, Tenterden, Kent.'”

“That was in the newspapers the other week”, John said casually.

I was on my guard at once.

“Why?” I asked.

“They are building one of those new 'light railways'† to the place like the one up at Seahouses where we met Doctor Winchelsey”, he said. “I think Tenterden used to be a quite important place but they never built a railway there so it fell behind.”

That was quite likely, I thought. Stevedon, scene of our recent monastic-themed murder, had shown the signs of if not decay then lack of growth due to the railway passing it by and I had read some time back about the sufferings of towns in the remoter parts of Cornwall and Devonshire as they had claimed that people and businesses were abandoning them for railway-connected towns.

“I wonder what he can want?” I mused. “Perhaps problems with the new railway? Some people do not take well to change.”

“It is not open yet”, John said. “It must be something else. Let us have him up and find out.”

֍

The Reverend Britten was in many ways the archetypal English vicar; short, bumbling, forgetful (he could not seem to locate the spectacles that were perched on his wide forehead) but also clearly very determined. And it was really unfair of my brain to choose that particular moment to suggest that our obliging local shop might run to a vicar's costume for one of us....

I had probably just earned myself some extra time in Purgatory for that thought. But at least John would be there with me judging from the redness of his own face!

“I am hoping that you may be able to use your influence to avert a local problem that has arisen on the Weald”, our visitor began. “It concerns a dead body.”

My eyebrows shot up. That was certainly direct.

“I think you had better begin at the beginning, sir”, I said firmly. “Let us start with the body. Do we know who it is?”

“There is the chance that it may be King Hlothere.”

He said this as if I should have known full well who this personage was. I looked hopefully across at John.

“An ancient king of Kent when it was still an independent kingdom back in the seventh century”, he said. “One of the best of his time.”

“It was all rather tragic”, the vicar mused as if he were considering events only the other week rather than some twelve centuries past. “King Hlothere's nephew Egbert was too young to succeed at a dangerous time so he stepped up for him and defended the kingdom. Rather than show any gratitude said nephew then had him killed. But that is families for you.”

Indeed, I thought, ignoring John's smirking across the room. _Families!_

“I would have thought that there was little way of ever knowing If the body was that of our slain monarch”, the vicar said, “except that some little distance from the body there was found a small hoard of coins and the remains of a helm. I am not really an expert on such things but Mr. Penny, the amateur archaeologist who was visiting the area and found them, is very hopeful. He has written to someone who he knows at the British Museum and who is an expert on such things and asked that they might come down to examine them.”

“He cannot bring the items to London?” I asked. The vicar shook his head.

“There are two problems with that”, he said. “First the helm is very fragile after all that time in the ground; a small part broke off when it was extracted. And second, the land where the body was found is in dispute. We have two landowners at opposite ends of the town and I am sorry to say that they are being _most_ difficult about the whole thing.”

“I suppose that they are seeing an opportunity to seize both the riches and the glory”, I sighed. “It is not as if you unearth such things every day.”

“Actually we do.”

We both looked at the vicar in surprise.

“Not the treasure”, he said, “but sad to say several bodies have come to light in John Best's Field as the place is called. Kent has as I am sure you are both aware often been the centre of rebellion against those in power in London, and the field was where a group gathered as part of the famous Peasants' Revolt in 1381. Unhappily for them the then-sheriff had some of his archers brought in and many of the rebels were cut down, the others fleeing. Such were the times, I suppose.”

I saw something there.

“You mentioned that an expert was coming down from the British Museum”, I said. “Do you have date for his arrival?”

“Yes, in two days' time”, the vicar said. “Why? Is that important?”

“I rather think that it is”, I said. “Tell me more about these two landowners who claim an ancient king and his treasure for themselves.”

“Mr. Owen Jones inherited the Wittersham estate from his father two years ago”, the vicar said with a sigh. “My good lady wife, one of the mildest and most gentle people ever to walk this earth, recently described him as 'a puffed-up little pipsqueak who I would like to strangle until his pips squeaked'. And that is one of the politer things that I have heard in the village; old Mrs. Price made a quite improper suggestion as to where she should like to shove her walking-stick! As a Christian I do try to be charitable but unfortunately my wife knows that she is right on this. Mr. Jones' late father owned the field and sold part of it off as housing land but the dispute is over just how much.”

“Lord Bulverhythe is the gentleman who purchased the land from Mr. Jones and then sold it on to the council for building land”, he went on. “That caused even more bad blood; Mr. Jones had thought that it could not be used for houses otherwise he would have demanded a higher price for it but Lord Bulverhythe knew that the council had agreed to that. His wife sits on the council so I presume that she told him. The body was found in the disputed area so both men are claiming it.”

“What about the treasure?” John asked.

“On Lord Bulverhythe's land”, our visitor said.

“So that is why the expert is important”, I said. “If the two can be tied together then they are treated as one, with the body marking the correct _locus_. I presume that there is no chance of these two landowners of yours reaching a settlement to split any proceeds from a future sale?”

The vicar just looked at me. I smiled.

“We will go with you down to Kent today”, I said. “But first I wish to put in place certain arrangements. If you care to amuse yourself in this fair city of ours vicar, we shall meet you outside the W. H. Smith's store on Victoria Station at two o'clock precisely.”

֍


	2. Chapter 2

Miss Charlotta Bradbury really needed to be persuaded to take over the government, I thought a few hours later as we bowled along the South Easter Railway line from Tonbridge. The folder that her agent had handed to me at Victoria had been incredibly comprehensive given the short time frame involved.

We were moving along at a fair pace and I mentioned that fact to the vicar. He nodded.

“The South Eastern Railway is, mercifully, now in a state of truce with its deadly rival the 'Chatham'”, he said. “My son is interested in railways and has followed their battles most avidly. He expects a merger of some sort quite soon, if onky because the war between the two has left them both all but broken. Although sadly it is too late for us.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked. John had departed to use the facilities and we were alone for a moment.

“Tenterden has been the target for many lines across Kent for nearly half a decade now”, he said. “This new light railway is our joining the modern world at last. Reconnecting the last limb, so to speak.”

I froze at that word but I think that I managed to hide my reaction.

“Why a limb?” I asked carefully.

“It is all to do with the Cinque Ports”, he said as John rejoined us. “Have you heard of them?”

I silently thanked my lucky stars that John had not got back half a minute earlier. We were far too well attuned to each other for me to hide much from him these days. Even so he looked curiously at me clearly sensing that something was not quite right. Deflection.

“I rely on the doctor here to be my walking encyclopaedia!” I said teasingly. 

Just as I had hoped he scowled and promptly set about proving me right.

“The Cinque Ports, from the French for the number five, were ports which provided ships for the king's navy in return for tax concessions”, he said. “The original five were later joined by two so-called 'Antient Towns', Rye and Winchelsea.”

I thought back to our recent case in Romney Marsh and our subsequent train journey through Rye. Judging from John's slightly red face he was thinking much the same (we had some seriously embarrassing memories between us!). But importantly my deflection had worked; he would hopefully forget my slight distraction earlier.

“Most of the seven ports 'farmed out' some of their rights to other towns along the coast along with a share of the tax concessions”, the vicar explained. “These smaller ports were called 'limbs' and Tenterden was one of them. Like the originals some are still thriving while others like Northeye which was near Hastings have been swamped by the sea.”

“I thought that Tenterden was quite some way inland?” I asked.

“It is now”, he said, “but before Romney Marsh was drained there was a large bay south of the town. The Isle of Oxney was then truly and island, not just a place surrounded by rivers like it is today.”

I hoped fervently that this was not to be our 'dangerous limb'. I did not usually bring my own gun with me on cases these days as John was far and away the better shot, but I had this time if only because I had had so little time to check things out beforehand. John of course had his, as always.

“I had the time to make some inquiries before we met up again”, I said. “I believe there was some matter over a couple being made homeless concerning your two arguing landowners?”

The vicar nodded. 

“That would be the Halls down in Rolvenden, a village near the town”, he said. “A sad case; the vicar there Mr. Pontin told me about it. Mr. Jones owned the land and wanted to knock their place down so that he could build three or four houses on it. They had a tenancy agreement for twenty years they had signed with his father, but he waited until they were away one day and had his men knock it down. They had to move into a tumbledown ruin out on the St. Michael's road; they could not afford a lawyr to fight there case.”

“And your archaeologist is a local fellow?” I asked. 

“A Kentishman but from Canterbury”, he said. “Why do you ask?”

“Because I think that we may be able to effect a compromise that suits everyone”, I smiled.

He looked at me in surprise, but I felt that I had every right to be confident. Although I was still worried about that limb thing.

֍

At the vicar's recommendation we stayed at a small hotel in the town's high street that looked a little questionable from the outside but was warm and cosy once we were in. And even better, they served bacon for dinner!

“You are like old Henriksen!” John teased. “And thief trying to escape would just have to drop loads of cake for him and bacon for you, and they would be safely away.”

“What sort of thief just happens to carry both cake and bacon around with them?” I asked innocently. “Besides, I need the energy so I can fuck your brains out tonight.”

He looked at me in horror. We were ensconced in a small nook in the place with our food but there were people not that far away.

“How can you say things like that in public?” he hissed, his eyes wide. 

“Because”, I said simply, “I love you.”

He really could turn very red.

֍

Not as red as he was just now, perhaps. It was a few hours later and we had retired to our room. And John was for once actually looking fearful.

“What brought all this on?” he gasped as I pounded into him as if his prostate had caused me some grievous offence and needed to be severely punished.

“I love you!” I growled. “I do not say that often enough, but I believe actions can speak louder than words!”

He whined as I reached forward to tweak both his nipples and his cock twitched feebly as he tried to come for the third time in under half an hour. Not happening.

“You only have to say....” I began.

“I will tell you when I have had enough”, he grunted. “Either that or I will just pass out. But you had better fuck me a few times if I do, just to make sure I am out.”

“I do not deserve you”, I growled. “But I am working on that.”

I managed to change my angle and caught his prostate much harder. His arms and legs twitched violently then he sank back on the bed. Moments later he was snoring gently.

Well, he had said to make sure....

֍

The Reverend Britten looked at me in astonishment, fortunately missing the fact that someone else was taking an inordinately long time about sitting down. 

“And they agreed to it?” he asked incredulously.

“They did”, I said, smiling at the cleric's amazement. “I suggested that all this could be avoided if they simply submitted one sealed bid each through the two of us and the higher to be accepted. If of course Mr. Penny's expert can verify the items.”

I was not lying to a man of the cloth. Well, not actually _lying_. Miss Bradbury had found out certain information about both gentlemen and it had been conveyed to them that if they did not accept this solution then said information might just appear in rather more papers than the _'Tenderden Gazette'_. Lord Bulverhythe's financial improprieties were one thing, but to look at Mr. Jones one would never have thought.... well, what he wore in his own house was his business. And would have been that of the Thunderer had he not cooperated!

“Are you all right, doctor?” the vicar asked, belatedly noting John's discomfiture. I risked a smirk as I was out of the vicar's line of sight and I knew it would annoy John.

“Just a bit of a rough night”, John said looking pointedly at me.

My smirk was not _that_ bad!

֍

Even the vicar could not suppress a slight smile when we met some time later that afternoon.

“I did wonder if either of our illustrious local gentlemen were going to expire”, he smiled. “Who could have known that Mr. S. Elbury of the British Museum was actually Mrs. Elbury of that estimable institution?”

“At least Mr. Jones was happy with his bid being the highest”, I said. “He is now the proud possessor of one ancient king and his relics. It seems that one can indeed buy history.”

And best of all, we have sorted this whole thing out without facing any danger, I thought in relief.

I should have known better.

֍

As I had expected, the vicar arrived at our hotel the following day just as we were preparing to leave for our carriage to Headcorn and the train to London. He was most disconcerted.

“You will not believe what has happened, Mr. Holmes!” he exclaimed. “That expert who came yesterday was a fake! A real one arrived today – a Mr. Stephen Elbury as we had first thought - and said that the relics were a forgery and the body likely just another from the Peasants' Revolt!”

“Really?” I said.

John looked at me sharply. As I said, he really did know me too well.

“Yes!” he exclaimed thankfully missing my lack of surprise. “He told Mr. Jones that the whole set was worthless!”

“Doubtless Mr. Penny has some questions to answer then”, John said.

“Doubtless he would have had”, the vicar agreed, “except that he has vanished! He left his lodgings with an unknown lady last night and has not been seen since! And since Mr. Jones paid cash as agreed, there is no way to recover the money.”

“Dear me”, I said. “How very unfortunate. I shall of course make what inquiries I can into this matter but frankly I do not hold out much hope. It seems to me to have been a thoroughly professional job.”

֍

We went first to the local police station where I told the constable there what little I could tell him, then we continued on our way to Headcorn. John looked suspiciously at me the whole way there but with our driver only a short distance up front he said nothing. Once were on the train however he cornered me.

“All right!” he said firmly. “Spill?”

“Had we not better lock the door before we start taking our clothes off?” I asked innocently. I had the pleasure of seeing him seriously considering it before he got his mind back on track.

“I do not believe this is a failed case at all”, he said. “You were up to something. Do you know where Mr. Penny has gone?”

“Back into the world of fiction where he belongs”, I said.

He just stared at me. I smiled perhaps a little too knowingly.

“Remember the story about how the unpleasant Mr. Jones forced the Halls out of their home?” I asked.

He nodded.

“The husband and wife determined to have their revenge”, I said. “Mr. Hall was already quite learnéd about archaeology and so disguised himself as a bearded expert on the subject. Coincidentally there is a fellow called Mr. Penny in Ashford who specializes in that field of study, except that he is currently away on a dig in the Holy Land. Mr. Hall assumed his identity.”

“He knew that any find would have to be verified so he checked through the lists of people at the British Museum and found a Mr. Stephen Elbury. His wife, also having read something on the subject, came down a day ahead of the real expert's expected time, knowing that the shock of a female expert would likely deter any awkward questions. The find having been verified, Mr. Jones happily handed over a small fortune - in cash - to the very man whose house he destroyed.”

“That is wonderful!” John chuckled. “Is that why you arranged the bidding process for him?”

I nodded.

“I told him that I knew his game and offered to help”, I said. “I am sorry I was unable to bring you in but as we both know, you are a terrible liar except when it comes to your patients and the occasional necessary half-truth.”

He accepted that far more readily that I could have hoped, and I smiled in relief. Everything had worked out, and we were away from the 'limb' where danger had doubtless been waiting for us somewhere. Well, it had missed us.

֍

Yes, I really should have known better.

֍

**Author's Note:**

> † The railway was indeed built from Robertsbridge to Tenterden and later on to Headcorn but it was never a success. Ten miles of the southern part of it (Tenterden to Bodiam) has been restored as the heritage Kent and East Sussex Railway and they are as of 2019 working on the last three miles from Bodiam to the main line at Robertsbridge.


End file.
